CORDON (a French derivative of corde, cord), a word used in many applications of its meaning of “line” or “cord,” and particularly
of a cord of gold or silver lace worn in military and other uniforms. The word is especially used of the sash or ribbon worn by members
of an order of knighthood, crossing from one shoulder to the
opposite hip. The cordon bleu, the sky-blue ribbon of the knight’s
grand cross of the order of the Holy Spirit, the highest order of the
Bourbon kings of France, was, like the “blue ribbon” of the
English Garter, taken as a type of the highest reward or prize
to which any one can attain (see also Cookery). In heraldry,
“cordons” are the ornamental cords which, with the hats to
which they are attached, ensign the shields of arms of certain
ecclesiastical dignitaries; they are interlaced to form a mesh
or network and terminate in rows of tassels. A cardinal’s cordon
is gules with five rows of fifteen tassels, an archbishop’s vert with
four rows of ten, and a bishop’s also vert, with three rows of six.
In architecture a “cordon” is a projecting band of stone along
the outside of a building, a string-course. The word is frequently
used in a transferred sense of a line of posts or stations to guard
an enclosed area from unauthorized passage, e.g. a military or
police cordon, and especially a sanitary cordon, a line of posts to
prevent communication from or with an area infected with
disease.